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To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

bbc.com

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Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#151

Post by TeMPOraL »

flukus wrote: post #139
Leherenn wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand this dismissing about "culture fit". You describe it yourself as a frat house, which, I assume from the rest of your post, is not what you want. Work is not always only about output and skills, especially in a small company run by 20-something whose only social life is their colleagues. It says nothing about your skills, just that both sides would probably be miserable in case you were hired…

> especially in a small company run by 20-something whose only social life is their colleagues So you'd discriminate against introverts because the team are awful at socializing? Apart from how sad that sounds and how awful it is for people (you're whole life has single point of failure), it also sounds very self defeating. > Work is not always only about output and skills Treating it that way is basically the founda…

> So you'd discriminate against introverts because the team are awful at socializing?

Aren't almost all companies?

> Apart from how sad that sounds and how awful it is for people (you're whole life has single point of failure)

It's not as much of a choice. Unless you've built and are above average good at maintaining a social network prior to work, workplace tends to become the primary part of the social life. It's a trend in the west.

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#152

Post by eru »

gt2 wrote: post #52

I've seen some articles[0] and firms[1] in the last years of not only valuing diversity in profiles of people but actually valuing aspies higher than neurotypical types. I think aspergers can definitely be a super power, but I thought it strange to actually say it is a net advantage since how can it be expected across the board? 0. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20160106-model-employee... 1. https://auticon.com

If your work environment is explicitly set up to cater to people with Aspergers, it might make them more useful to you than neurotypicals.

And that's while neurotypicals might still be better all around employees in your average company.

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#153

Post by leadingthenet »

romwell wrote: post #114
Leherenn wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really understand this dismissing about "culture fit". You describe it yourself as a frat house, which, I assume from the rest of your post, is not what you want. Work is not always only about output and skills, especially in a small company run by 20-something whose only social life is their colleagues. It says nothing about your skills, just that both sides would probably be miserable in case you were hired…

>I don't really understand this dismissing about "culture fit" You should understand that what you wrote sounds like discrimination by age (and sex, "frat" means male), which is illegal - and for good reasons. EDIT: specifically, the only way a 35-year-old is not a "culture fit" in "a small company run by 20-something whose only social life is their colleagues" is if that company is discriminating by age. I don't hav…

Culture is something you have a certain amount of control over. Age/sex/w/e isn't.

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#154

Post by tarsinge »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #64
stared wrote: post #7

As an Aspie/ADD, I have never passed any formal interview, even for an intern position (sic!). (You can compare and contrast it with my GitHub/Resume/blog to make a judgment.) Fortunately, many times (even for mid-size companies or research institutes) the hiring was less formal. For small startups, where it is informal, I didn't feel at a disadvantage. For big, I don't believe I can pass through the first filter. It…

Weird may be a simple emotional feeling people get because they sense you will mistreat them. (likely based on previous experience) What I have found dealing with people that are Aspie/ADD (father and brother) is they expect others to change behavior to adapt to themselves, but refuse to change their own behavior to adapt to others. (even when directly told their behavior is not acceptable) This means that many socia…

The problem is that if you are aspie not being awkward and rude takes 100% of your brain for conscious analysis, whereas for neurotyoical people it’s the opposite it takes a conscious decision to be rude. So it’s impossible for an aspie to change permanently while working.

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#155

Post by eru »

cwyers wrote: post #89
tus88 wrote: post #81

I wonder why they just didn't get rid of normal job interview questions and let a natural conversation unfold. Surely they want to at least meet the person and get a feel for their character.

The problem is that you can't have a natural conversation with someone where there's high stakes. Job interviews are incredibly asymmetrical conversations, where one party has very low stakes (often they're choosing between several candidates who all have met earlier qualification hurdles, and only one candidate is needed to fill the position) and someone has very high stakes. There is no way to make the high stakes…

As a candidate, one of the social hacks you can do is make the interviewer think the conversation is low stakes for you.

Either by bluffing well, or by genuinely making the conversation low stakes.

Some strategies of for the latter:

* start interviewing while you are still happy at your old job

* interview in batches, so you can afford to bomb some, and ideally get multiple offers you can play against each other

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#156

Post by [deleted] »

itronitron wrote: post #110
atupis wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>PS: It’s odd, but I suspect a random process may actually work better because the great people actively looking for jobs are likely to be bad at getting them. Somebody should almost build a toy startup around that random process eg Chatroulette for hiring. that might make sense.

'open-source contributions' might be what job postings are trying to capture with this ... presumably the longer a good developer is unemployed the more likely they are to contribute to open source

[deleted]

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#157

Post by TeMPOraL »

ntlk wrote: post #97
icotyl wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't had heard it in interviews, but I've been asked several times by former managers in performance reviews. Do they want the truth? "I'd like to be managing you."

As a manager I would definitely want the truth. There is nothing wrong with drive and ambition, so why hide it?

As an ambitious interviewee, I assume by default a significant risk that, were I to reveal the depths of my ambition, you'd consider me a threat to your ambitions and reject on the spot.

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#158

Post by atupis »

wongarsu wrote: post #70
atupis wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>PS: It’s odd, but I suspect a random process may actually work better because the great people actively looking for jobs are likely to be bad at getting them. Somebody should almost build a toy startup around that random process eg Chatroulette for hiring. that might make sense.

However you would either need a great process for quickly terminating bad hires or keep this strategy very secret. Otherwise word spreads and your hiring pool quickly turns from "random" to "every freeloader in the industry".

Yeah, you would probably add some weighted sampling to it eg overweight those candidates who have lots of Github contributions.

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#159

Post by goatinaboat »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #64
stared wrote: post #7

As an Aspie/ADD, I have never passed any formal interview, even for an intern position (sic!). (You can compare and contrast it with my GitHub/Resume/blog to make a judgment.) Fortunately, many times (even for mid-size companies or research institutes) the hiring was less formal. For small startups, where it is informal, I didn't feel at a disadvantage. For big, I don't believe I can pass through the first filter. It…

Weird may be a simple emotional feeling people get because they sense you will mistreat them. (likely based on previous experience) What I have found dealing with people that are Aspie/ADD (father and brother) is they expect others to change behavior to adapt to themselves, but refuse to change their own behavior to adapt to others. (even when directly told their behavior is not acceptable) This means that many socia…

they expect others to change behavior to adapt to themselves, but refuse to change their own behavior

That is something that is always overlooked. What about the mental health of the rest of the team who are expected to just smile when someone is obnoxiously rude to them over and over and over again? With no recourse to report it to HR?

Every “aspie” probably actively harms the mental health of a dozen ordinary people, but that’s invisible.

Re: To hire neurodiverse workers, one firm got rid of job interviews

#160

Post by watwut »

RobertRoberts wrote: post #64
stared wrote: post #7

As an Aspie/ADD, I have never passed any formal interview, even for an intern position (sic!). (You can compare and contrast it with my GitHub/Resume/blog to make a judgment.) Fortunately, many times (even for mid-size companies or research institutes) the hiring was less formal. For small startups, where it is informal, I didn't feel at a disadvantage. For big, I don't believe I can pass through the first filter. It…

Weird may be a simple emotional feeling people get because they sense you will mistreat them. (likely based on previous experience) What I have found dealing with people that are Aspie/ADD (father and brother) is they expect others to change behavior to adapt to themselves, but refuse to change their own behavior to adapt to others. (even when directly told their behavior is not acceptable) This means that many socia…

That is more about entitlent and what they generally value. I knew both neurotypical and aspie like that. And you are right that it amounts to abuse acceptance

I knew also aspies (two) that did their best to listen and once we adjusted to his communication (e.g. learned to be extremely direct), it was not like that at all.

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